Dear Firehawk et al:
<<<<<<<<
If your consultant wants to keep his job, he will continue to refuse to
consider a grammar textbook because there is no research that supports
the teaching of what has become to be known as "formal" grammar - the
definitions of the 8 parts of speech and the subsequent identification of
these parts in a sentence. (Punctuation skills - knowing about the
"floating comma thingy" - are typically lumped along with such things a
spelling and capitalization into something called "mechanics.")
Your problem, of course, is that while the formal study of grammar does
not improve student writing, neither does anything else. This is the
current quandry of the English profession.
The professional English people - particularly NCTE - promote what they
call "grammar in context." While "teaching grammar in context" sounds
good, there is very little definition about the "context" in which
grammar is supposed to be taught. This may sound like "writing
workshops," but unless you're Constance Weaver, there is little
indication that these are effective in improving student grammar. And I
think that DOL exercises have also been condemned. When the research
shows that basically nothing works, that leaves teachers such as yourself
between the rock of poor student writing and the hard place of the
consultant's unyielding dictums.
However, I have a suggestion that is working in my classroom - start with
what the students already know, which is really quite a lot. As modern
research into language will reveal to any consultant, all children come
"hard-wired" with the basic grammar, syntax, and usage rules of their
native language. Therefore, no student of yours would write a sentence
such as the following: "Milk because I of went to out the ran store
before we dinner." Given a few minutes, most students will be able to
translate this "sentence" into the normal English sentence: "I went to
the store before dinner because we ran out of milk." or, "Because we ran
out of milk, I went to the store before dinner."
However, it is important to note that although your students are
perfectly able to construct such a sentence, probably none of them could
tell you the definition of a dependent clause, nor could they find one in
a sentence even if they could define it. However, they all know how to
use dependent clauses!
Nor would any student who starts a sentence with the words: "I just came
back from . . ." would fail to complete this preposition with its object.
However, few if any of your students may be able to define a
prepositional phrase nor find one in a sentence even if they know the
definition. However, just like dependent clauses, they are all perfectly
capable of using prepositional phrases!
In fact, in their normal speech, all of your students collectively are
perfectly capable of using most grammatical constructions. This, then,
is where you start - at the most basic level of an English sentence - and
have them demonstrate how to create a better sentence, which they are all
capable of doing.
For example, write a simple, yet provocative sentence on the board such
as "The baby cried." Then, have the students "stuff" the sentence with
constructions telling "who, what, why, where, when, and how." They will
be creative - and grammatical! With the entire class making suggestions
and editing the sentence, they will probably come up with a delightfully
complex sentence, even one such as the following: "After she was put to
bed last night in the back room of the house where her parents were
visiting, two-month old Jessica cried unceasingly because her diapers
needed to be changed, but her mother continued to drink and smoke and
laugh because the uproar of the party in the front living room totally
blocked out little Jessica's screams." This may be a little too much to
expect from 6th graders, but they'll come pretty close.
What this approch does is to get the students writing to create meaning -
to "stuff" their sentences with information that an audience needs in
order to continue reading or listening to the writer. Your job, then, is
to show them all of the ways to answer the "who, what, why, where, when,
and how" questions - and, as it turns out, the ways to answer these
questions just happen to include all of the 8 parts of speech, which
(when students know how and why to use them) they wind up remembering
much better than when they were just something stupid that they had to
memorize.
So to make a long story short, students already know a lot of grammar;
they just aren't skilled at writing. The teaching of writing, then,
boils down to students practicing how and when to use various
constructions; if they wind up learning the names, so much the better; if
they wind up learning how to identify them in a sentence, that's fine,
too. But neither the vocabulary of grammar, nor the rules of grammar, is
necessary to learn how to write, and that's what I think you and your
consultant really want.
Good luck!
Geoff Layton
>>>>
In your opinion, is it necessary to have direct grammar instruction at
the elementary school level, or are the students better served by
"writing workshop" and editing "daily oral language" sentences? Our
district Language consultant refuses to consider a grammar textbook
without research that demonstrates the importance of direct grammar
instruction. We've been attempting to teach writing and grammar skills
without a textbook for the past 7 years and are now faced with 6th
graders that (WHO) have no ability to identify a verb or a noun, and call
apostrophes "that floating comma thingy."
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